I love what I do. Being a social media manager is a perfect fit for me but, as with all businesses, it's not all just a bed of roses.
Lots of people ask me how I got into social media and become a social media manager. This is usually because they are thinking about doing it themselves. I always say the same thing "Social Media marketing is the best business in the world. . . If you spend time in social media platforms for fun, you'll love it. If you force yourself because you think you should . . . you'll get bored pretty quickly."
I have decided to write this post about the 5 best aspects of my job and the 5 worst (in my opinion) to try and give people a balanced view of what we social media managers do.
5 Best Things:
1. Freedom
Freedom in every sense of the word is what you enjoy as a social media manager. It gives me location freedom as I can work from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. Although I do work from an office because I employ staff I must admit I tend to do a good proportion of my engagement from my iPhone. Which means I can make use of these usually wasted pockets of time in my day i.e. waiting in a queue at the bank, in a traffic jam or even waiting in the line at the Gap buying some T-shirts. Add up that time over the course of the day and see how much you actually got paid to use. I also recently worked from beside the pool whilst on holiday in Cyprus (just to keep an eye on the guys in the office)
2. Turning Non-Believers into Believers
I deal with a lot of sceptics in this business, which is fair enough. Social Media Marketing is still brand new to a lot of people. There are usually a couple of social media evangelists in a company who drive the decision makers to bring in a Social Media Marketing company.
I love to come back to a client after 2 or 3 months of a campaign and say look at your online community now. See the increase in traffic, look at the positive things people have said and look at the new people asking the buying questions and asking about the business. They can see the names and faces of their new customers. They can see people becoming enthused about the business and interacting with us. It's a great feeling to show them that it works. This is usually the point when they up their budget.
3. It's Money for Old Rope
I say that because to me this just doesn't feel like work. We have objectives for all our clients and they all tend to include reaching out and engaging with as many relevant people as possible. I just love to see people responding to the messages that I or my team wrote and watching the success of a campaign unfold. As I said in the opening paragraph, if you enjoy spending time in Social Media Platforms
4. It's So in Demand
We have literally never advertised or marketed our service. When I first got started and it was just me in the company I got my first 5 clients on board before I left my full time job at Lexus. I had plans to put a big email marketing campaign in place and had money put aside for a PPC campaign. I almost instantly, within the first month had another 5 clients just from referrals. Now my 10 clients were referring other to me and so on. I'm sure in time it will become like SEO (very cut throat and saturated in my experience) but for now we are few in this industry so we can enjoy this period.
5. You Need Nothing But Knowledge to Start Your Business
Got a computer? Check. Then you are almost there. All you need is the right knowledge and you can start your own business. In 2009 I owned juice bars in my hometown. I loved my business even though I had risked the large bank loan to start the business on my house. Global recession happened, stores around me closed down, in short I was bankrupt and I had no money to start another business.
I got a job at Lexus but I still wanted my own business. At the time Lexus had ZERO social media presence. I asked if I could handle it and before long we had some extra leads each week for sales. LIGHTBULB MOMENT! I had just created value for this company and spent nothing to do it. I had become a social media marketer with No Money, No Experience and No Formal Qualification! Needless to say a resigned soon after.
The 5 Worst Things about being a Social Media Marketer:
1. My Phone Constantly Buzzes
Yes, I have a small team of marketing assistants now but I still handle some clients and like to keep an eye on them all. Unfortunately this means lots of notifications, messages, updates, mentions etc. I mentioned I do a fair proportion from my iPhone which means it is constantly alerting me to things.
2. "We have a Facebook Expert. . . Our receptionist spends her lunch break on it"
This is frustrating to me sometimes. Some businesses think that the employees who spend their lunch breaks on Twitter or Facebook are "experts" in social media. We have to delicately explain that looking at your ex's photos or reading tweets from your friends in college is not Social Media Marketing. These are usually the people that call when they realise that the intern can't build Iframes in Facebook or doesn't know where to find prospects in LinkedIn.
3. Getting distracted with your own SM stuff
Like everyone who loves social media I'm interested in people. When I see people I know or people I have been engaging with a client have added new videos or photo etc I find myself flicking through and losing track of time. I'm working on my will power but hey, I'm only human right?
4. Internet connections
It's web based, so things aren't always 100% reliable. When I'm trying to schedule tweets and Twitter is suddenly "Over Capacity" that sometimes gets frustrating.
5. Organisation
I'm clutching at straws now because I really can't think of a 5th worst thing about the job. Organisation is, personally, the area which I like to work on. Luckily for me my assistant is super organised (too organised if you ask me, seriously who organises the coffee mugs in color and size order??) you will need to be organised to manage several accounts but hey, if you like organising this one is in the wrong list.
So that's my top 5 Best and Worst things about being a social media manager. Hope you found it useful. If you're thinking of becoming a Social Media Manager or Consultant, i'm happy to help